


Not From Hallmark

by fromward (from)



Category: Smallville
Genre: Kid Fic, M/M, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-01-17
Updated: 2005-01-17
Packaged: 2017-10-24 18:02:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/266326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/from/pseuds/fromward
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some after-school activities test your mettle more than others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not From Hallmark

**Author's Note:**

> Beta: shattered  
> Title: jadedsilver

_Stupid stupid bet_ , he cursed, yanking at his gold and black school tie as he watched his father, topcoat and suit jacket unbuttoned, wandering up and down the three aisles of the stationery store for the umpteenth time.

After another painful minute he decided to open his mouth. ‘Dad. Can we go now?’

Dad's bald head barely moved in his direction. ‘In a minute, Hiram.’

‘But Daaaaad …’

‘That whine sounds very familiar.’ His dad always acted as if everything, good or bad, only amused him. And it always looked so damn genuine, Hiram thought, both annoyed and awed.

He swayed in place, bumping his right shoulder into one of the wood pillars over and over and over again. ‘We’ve been here for an hour,’ he pointed out.

His dad looked at a card that he’d touched only minutes ago before going back to the one in his hand. ‘Go take a walk with Curtis to the newsstand and get a comic.’

He eyed Curtis: standing guard by the door, keeping faithful watch as usual.

‘If we don’t leave now, he’s going to be home before us.’ Clark always got home at seven. Always.

His dad didn’t reply, too busy fingering what looked like blue felt - _Ugh!_ \- on a card high on the shelf in front of him.

‘You know, Dad, just admit that you’re a perfectionist and a control freak who's incapable of giving a card that wasn’t made-to-order.’ He toed the plush crème carpet. ‘It’s not like you’re going to miss the hundred dollars if you lose the bet,’ he said, lowering his voice so the saleswoman couldn’t hear him. ‘And Uncle Pete never laughs at you for too long anyway.’

His dad looked up for the first time, head slightly cocked to the side. ‘Are you coaxing me into surrender? Into failure?’ he asked, one hand on his waist and the other – still with a couple of cards in it – against the shelf.

He hated it when his father talked and acted like Grandpa Lionel. ‘Dad.’

The man sighed, straightening up, his free hand adjusting the fall of his clothes. ‘I want it to be special.’

 _God, parents could be so lame sometimes!_

Hiram looked at the weary saleswoman standing behind the cashier’s desk and rolled his eyes. She smiled and shrugged as if to say that she understood his dad’s predicament.

 _Ngggghhh._

‘Well, can I at least go to the car and get something?’

‘As long as you’re not running away,’ his father quipped, squeezing his shoulder as he slipped past him in the narrow aisle.

Once on the sidewalk, he ran out to the car, with Curtis following behind.

The smell of leather hit him when Tom opened the door from the inside, one gloved hand on the steering wheel.

'No, stay there, Tom!' he said, keeping the door open with an idle leg. He was tall enough now to lean effortlessly against the car like his dad did and not look like he was hiding from the police. Well, almost. 'Just please reach over and pass me my backpack!'

He thanked Tom as he ran back to the store and opened his bag to grab the vintage Polaroid camera Jimmy had given him for his birthday last week and some stationery.

Inside the store, he slipped the pen and paper into his blazer pocket; gave his bag to Curtis, who shook his head as he took his position by the door again; and skulked around one end of a row of shelves, camera in hand.

‘Hey!’ his father yelped, squinting and mumbling something about born opportunists when he caught him off-guard with a snap and a flash.

The picture of a man with furrowed eyebrows and an open, garrulous mouth materialized in Hiram’s hands minutes later. He grinned and, with the camera strap slung over one shoulder, walked over to the cashier’s desk and quietly asked for some tape.

Folding the slightly crumpled paper he had in half, he taped the picture on one side and scribbled underneath it: ‘This man is a freak.’

He laid the paper open on the glass surface and stared at the whiteness. Just because he knew what he was about to write didn’t mean he wouldn’t hate writing it.

But whatever. His parents were so corny and pathetic about each other and like Chloe said, _Best to just go along with it._

‘And he loves you.’

Right smack in the center.

He shook his head violently for a second before regaining composure. The saleswoman looked like she wanted to laugh and yeah, he did too, if he wasn’t so traumatized by what he just wrote.

Twirling his pen in one hand, he walked over to his dad and offered what he’d made. ‘Here.’

‘What’s this?’

He shrugged. ‘No one said it had to be from Hallmark.’

His dad stood silent for a moment before breaking into a smile that he wasn’t sure a parent should be able to pull off. _Now he looks too young to be my dad_ , he thought. _Weird. And hell, totally unnecessary!_

The bald head bent down, nuzzling his, and he knew their time at the store was over. ‘Come on,’ his dad put an arm around him, navigating them towards the door.

‘Can I have the hundred?’ he asked, hopeful.

His dad thanked the saleslady as they passed by her desk and then gave him that familiar smirk. ‘Why don’t we put it towards the car you’re getting when you turn sixteen?’

‘You always say that,’ he said, sighing.

His dad let him step out of the store first. ‘Porsches aren’t cheap, you know.’

He glanced back over his shoulder, waiting for his dad to fall in step with him. ‘Is that what Grandpa told you when you trashed your first?’ he grinned.


End file.
